


The death of the first brotherhood

by brightclam



Series: DES and accompanying canon [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men First Class - Fandom
Genre: Dissection, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Torture, angst ahoy, but i sure as fuck do, erik cares about the brotherhood and they kinda? care about him, he has to watch them die because trask is a sadistic fucker, the writers of the movie may not have remembered that Janos existed, they all die :)))), unless you count the cold comfort of murdering the brotherhood's killers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-04-08
Packaged: 2018-10-06 09:32:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10331654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brightclam/pseuds/brightclam
Summary: We know from X-men days of future past that at least Angel, Emma, and Azazel died at the hands of Trask. Here's my version of how it happened.(Spoiler alert: it was terrible)





	1. false hope

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually a collection of flashbacks from my other fic but you don't have to read that to understand.
> 
> tw: torture, death

\-----------

He hasn't seen his brotherhood in days. Emma wasn't with them when they were captured, he has no idea where she is. Janos, Azazel, and Angel were with him, but they were taken out of the cell, and they haven't been returned yet. 

 

Erik startles when the door opens; he wasn't really expecting them to ever return. 

 

The bulk of a guard casts a monstrous shadow over the dark cell. He throws a person in; the rags of a fine suit and the swath of long, now greasy hair marks the newcomer as Janos.

 

He manages to catch himself before he hits the floor, landing on his hands and knees. The guard pulls the door shut and the cell goes dark again. Erik moves towards Janos slowly, letting his eyes adjust, so that he doesn't run into him.

 

Janos is gasping, his arms shaking as they try to support his weight. When Erik reaches out to help him, the injured mutant ends up toppling over and into him. Erik lets it happen, trying to hold him up.

 

There's something wet seeping into Erik’s shirt. Janos trembles against him and struggles to breath, a ragged noise occasionally interrupted by a wet gurgle. He's bleeding, probably internally as well as externally. He may have a punctured lung.

 

Erik doesn't say anything, he doesn't have any words to say. They brought Janos back here to die, and there’s nothing Erik can do to change that. His captors are trying to make a point, and succeeding.

 

He doesn't let go of Janos, even though his shirt is soaked through with blood. It must be the right thing to do, as Janos clings to him, burying his face in Erik’s neck. Erik is thankful Janos doesn't try to speak: his throat is so tight he wouldn't be able to respond.

 

There's less rasping and more gurgling. The blood seems to flow slower, and Janos shakes less and less. Finally, he goes still. Erik cradles the cooling body to his chest, tears prickling at the corners of his eyes.

 

He doesn't let them fall, not here. He just sits, numb, holding the body of his loyal follower. He glares into the darkness, imagining his tormentors, and swears vengeance.  

 

Another oath to add to the pile; he wonders if there is wrath enough in the world to fulfill them all.

 

\--------------

 

They throw Azazel in a couple hours later. Erik lets go of Janos’s body for the first time in order to reach the red mutant.

 

The cell had already stank of blood, but it had faded with Janos’s life. Now the stink is back, sickly sweet, and Erik knows Azazel is a dead man.

 

He scrambles to his side anyways. Azazel grins, teeth shining in the darkness. He abruptly remembers that Azazel has perfect night vision.

 

“Magneto.”

 

Erik nods to show he's listening and tries not to look at the deep cut on his stomach, weeping blood. He’s glad of the darkness: in the light he would surely be able to see the glint of exposed organs.

 

“I would not say you are a good man, none of us are. But you are a better man than any I have served. After so many years of harsh masters, I am glad to die in service of a kind one.”

 

Erik doesn’t speak, but he takes the hand that Azazel offers. The teleporter grins at him, sharp and vicious even in his weakened state, and his tail curls around Erik’s waist.

 

He looks past Erik’s body and his glowing eyes grow sad. His grip on Erik tightens.

 

“Ah, my beautiful Janos. He never could keep his mouth shut. But I suppose he would rather have died fighting than survive submissive.”

 

He looks up at Erik, suddenly vulnerable. It’s the first time Erik has ever seen him look afraid.

 

“He didn’t die alone? You were with him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

Azazel relaxes, looks relieved. 

 

“If I regretted anything, I would regret not dying alongside him.”

 

“You are dying with me, Azazel, for me. I will not forget that, and I will not let anyone else forget either.”

 

Azazel smiles, strangely soft, considering his fangs.

 

“I always did want to be remembered.”

 

_ \------------ _

 

Angel. She was perhaps the strongest of the three, they hated her the most. He hears the guards talking about her. No matter what they did to her, they couldn't get her to react. Janos screamed, Azazel threatened, but Angel was silent.

 

They cut her wings off, stabbed and burnt and beat her. But still, she looked down on them. When they brought her back to him, she walked on her own.

 

She had fit her name then, standing tall, haloed in light. Erik, sitting next to Azazel's body, had seen her and felt hope surge in him. Here she was, supporting herself, not fatally injured. 

 

Maybe he won't lose her. 

 

They returned her whole, let him hope. She’s within arms reach when they shoot her.

 

The gunshot echoes around the cell’s small space.

 

She crumples as regally as she stood, graceful even as she falls.

 

He reaches her as she hits the ground. There's a bullet wound on her torso, bleeding from both sides. It's gone straight through, she’ll bleed out in seconds. 

 

There's nothing he can do.

 

\------------

 

Angel’s body is stiff and cold when Emma speaks in his head.

 

“Magneto. I'm coming to get you.”

 

“Emma. Is Mystique with you?”

 

“No, she's still undercover. But I have a plan, I should be able to get you guys out on my own.”

 

“Be careful, Emma.”

 

He sits with the bodies and waits for her to come. A guard arrives before she does and removes the bodies. Erik considers fighting him over them, but it's not worth it. 

 

_ What do they want the bodies for? Are they just going to throw them out? Will I be able to recover them and give them a proper burial? _

 

He's alone for a painfully long time. The cell smells of blood and rot. He begins to doubt that Emma will ever come.

 

Then, finally, the cell door slams open, spilling blinding yellow light into the cell. Emma stands there, vengeful and beautiful in her short white dress. Her diamond form sends reflected light scattering across the room. She turns the ugly cell into a work of art.

 

She looks down on him and he sees a glimmer of concern in her cold eyes. She extends a hand and helps him to his feet.

 

“Magneto. Where are the others?”

 

The rage returns, burning up his throat and pooling in his mouth, slipping over his tongue and around his teeth. He pulls himself up, stands up straight. He recites his oath of vengeance in his head, letting it fuel him. 

 

_ I am Magneto. They cannot stop me. _

 

“They’re dead, Emma. They killed them.”

 

Her composure never breaks, but her eyes turn sad and her shoulders slump.

 

“Then let’s get out of here.”

 

As soon as he steps out of the cell, his powers return. They must have had a dampening field in the walls. There’s a small ring of guards waiting for them; the first responders. They don’t manage even one shot out of their plastic guns before Emma freezes them and turns their brains to mush.

 

She steps over the bodies and pulls a bag of small iron balls out of her pocket. She pours them out and he catches them with his power before they hit the floor. He spins them around his hands, a whirlwind of seemingly harmless metal.

 

They make their way through the hallways, killing the soldiers who try to stop them. Emma laughs as they drop, a cruel noise that he rarely hears. He’s enjoying killing these humans more than usual as well. 

 

_ This is for you, Azazel, Janos, Angel. _

 

They’ve almost made it to the exit when the lone soldier comes around the corner. They’re  dressed differently than the others; a smear of red and purple on their head. Erik sends the iron flying towards them lazily; Emma usually gets them before he can.

 

Emma doesn’t react.

 

Magneto was wearing his helmet when they captured him.

 

The soldier pulls the trigger.

 

Emma collapses.

 

The iron finally hits the soldier, sending him flying back. He hits the wall behind him, helmet clanking loudly.

 

“Emma!”

 

She’s writhing on the floor, gasping for breath. A squad of soldiers comes around the corner, bearing down on her. Erik turns to run back to her but she looks him straight in the eyes and screams:

 

“Go, Erik!”

 

_ He can’t save her. Getting himself captured as well is pointless. _

  
He turns his back on her and pushes the door open. Daylight and fresh air pour in and he flees into the outside world.


	2. burial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw:this chapter has some gore and body horror. Lots of dead bodies. 
> 
> I'm pretty sure Erik spends 98% of his time dissociating, considering the huge amount of trauma he's been through and he's never had any help with any of it.

\-------

He makes his way back to the safe house. He steals a car, takes out a pair of policemen who chase him. Some of the government guards attack him as well, but he’s surrounded by metal, so it’s an easy victory.

 

He stumbles through the door and collapses on the couch. The locks on the door click shut under his power.

 

He stays curled up on the couch for hours, shaking. He vomits, but nothing comes up but bile. He doesn't feel the passage of time, mind trapped in a grey despair that never falters or changes.

 

But, slowly, agonizingly slowly, the grey is fading into numbness. He welcomes it. He doesn't feel anything, but that’s okay. Most of his life has been spent surviving, his body knows how to do that without his mind’s input.

 

He drags himself off the couch and walks to the kitchen. By the time his bare feet touch the tile, he’s standing tall and straight again. He slips as he steps onto the tile; his feet are bleeding.

 

He stares down at them with vague disappointment; they're getting the tile dirty. Then he continues on.

 

He cleans their blood off his hands in the sink. The pink water pools in the dirty dishes that a house full of people left behind.

 

Azazel had always yelled at Emma to do her own dishes and she never did.

 

Some days, he wishes he was a telepath. Then the screams wouldn't stay trapped in his head. His agony, his rage, would boil out into the world and tear minds asunder. And they wouldn't be able to deny the truth of his words, as they would feel his memories in their heads.

 

He has never wanted to hurt in silence. If he could, he’d take every memory, every scream, every death, and stuff it down their throats until they choked.

 

He’s leaning over the sink, arms shaking. There’s dents from his fingers in the sink, and the faucet has burst and is spraying water across the room. He didn't even feel it soak him.

 

He leaves the mess in the kitchen behind. He digs his feet into the carpet, struggling to understand. The carpet is soft.

 

How it dare be so soft when he’s so sharp? Why wasn't he allowed to keep the softness of Janos’s hair, the softness of Azazel’s smile, the softness of Angel’s wings, the softness of Emma’s clothes? Why is such an insignificant thing as a floor allowed to be soft when what matters isn't?

 

He's been shedding fabric as he walks down the hall. The dirty rags litter the floor behind him. By the time he’s made it to the bedroom, he’s naked. Not naked enough; he's still trapped in a shell of blood and dirt, reminders of what had been done to them.

 

He steps into the shower, lets the water run over him, not much different than the broken faucet raining down on him. He doesn't bother to clean himself, just struggles to stay standing. 

 

He only spends a few minutes in the shower. Yet, when he comes out, the clock says an hour has passed.

 

He levitates his armor out of the closet and onto his body, piece by piece. With every piece, he says a name. It starts with his parents, his childhood friends. Then his mutant friends, then the mutants he had failed to save. Then, Azazel, Janos, Angel. As he places the helmet on his head, he says Emma.

 

It's such a long list, and with such repetitive motions, that it almost seems like a lullaby. He pushes away any thoughts of sleep and moves to leave the room. He has business with Bolivar Trask.

 

He doesn't make it two steps before he collapses.

 

\--------

 

When he wakes up again, his first thought is that he needs to pee. He makes his way to the bathroom, but his legs are shaking, almost can't support him. He hasn't eaten in days, he needs to eat something now.

 

He manages to stumble from the bathroom to the kitchen. He rips open the fridge and yanks out a container of pasta that Janos had made up a week ago. He eats it with his hands, plain. It doesn't matter; all that matters is that it will keeps his body going.

 

He dumps it in the bloody, ruined sink and waits a few minutes, long enough for the sugar to hit his bloodstream, before leaving the safe house.

 

He remembers exactly how to get back to the facitlity. He retraces his steps, but when he gets there the facility is empty. He tears it apart anyways, out of rage and also so that it can't be used to hurt any mutants ever again.

 

The trail may have gone cold but Magneto has a sense they can't throw off. With enough focus and energy, he can track specific types of metal. And he specifically designed his helmet so that it had a unique signature. As long as the murderers have the helmet, he can find them.

 

He floats over the wreck if the facility and closes his eyes, reaching his power out over the world, looking for the helmet. He senses it; a state away. They had evacuated, but not very far away.

 

_ Sloppy. _

 

He doesn't bother with stealing a car. His single minded rage is strengthening his powers, so he can just fly to the other facility. It’ll be quicker that way.

 

He doesn't stop, even to eat. He flies over cities and fields, people pointing and yelling when he passes over their heads. At last he reaches the deceptively simple patch of woods where his helmet has come to rest.

 

He can feel the bulk of another facility underneath the ground, the weight of iron and other common metals used in buildings. As he floats over the woodland, small machine guns pop out of the ground and begin firing. 

 

They're plastic bullets, and plastic guns, so he has to rip the metal armor off his body to block the bullets. He swoops towards the ground and takes shelter behind a hill.

 

Once he is no longer in danger of being shot , he sends the armor plates spinning away from him and smashing into the guns. Before they can activate another wave of defenses, he rips out a chunk of the facilities’s ceiling, making a hole through which he can enter.

 

He floats down through it, holding a chunk of sheet metal in front of him as he goes. It's a good thing too; as he drops into a hallway a pair of soldiers open fire. He bashes them with the metal and continues down the hallway.

 

He wanders through the facility, killing anyone who stands in his way. He passes through an endless amount of hallways and science labs. Then, he stumbles into a room filled with tables.

 

There are bodies, covered in white sheets, lying on the tables. The room stretches on for seems like forever, an army of corpses. Erik ignores how his hand shakes as he reaches out for the first sheet.

 

Underneath is an unfamiliar mutant, covered in green scales, naked and with a Y shaped incision on their torso. Despite the scores of dead he's seen before in his life, this inspires a fresh wave of horror and disgust.

 

He doesn't have to wonder why the mutants have been cut open, he already knows. He is no stranger to his people being used as unwilling guinea pigs.

 

_ Oh no, oh no no...they took their bodies. I let them take their bodies! _

 

He screams and the metal tables thrash and fall over. Bodies fall to the floor, entangled in their white sheets. And Erik walks among them, taking in their empty faces, the terrible stitched up Ys on their chests. He burns their faces into his mind, more names to remember when he armors himself.

 

But then. A flash of red skin. Erik kneels slowly, dread trickling down his spine, and already knows what he will see. A tail lies limp, half curled around the fallen table leg. 

 

_ Azazel. _

 

There’s cuts on his face, the deep gut wound, and that terrible, yawning Y. Azazel, for the first time in Erik’s life, looks vulnerable; curled up on his side, naked with his limbs sprawled out limply. He looks like a child, asleep after a long day of play.

 

He pulls the sheet over the assassin. There’s nothing more he can do for him now; the desecration has already been done. 

 

A few more steps and he sees Angel. She’s lying on her back, looking peaceful, as if she were simply napping on the safe house couch. But that Y glares at Erik from her chest as well, the stitches swollen and dark like bugs burrowing into her skin.

 

He wraps her in her sheet as well. Curls her onto her side like Azazel. It hides the Y and makes the gunshot wound less obvious.

 

Next he finds Janos. He'd never seen Janos in less than shorts and a t shirt, so the skin he sees now looks endless. And the Y is here too, jagged and ugly in a way that would have infuriated Janos’s artist’s eye.

 

He covers Janos, more carefully than Azazel and Angel, making sure most of his skin is covered. Janos wouldn't have liked having so much of himself showing.

 

He stumbles to a stop at another body. This one isn't one of his brotherhood, but they look familiar. Red, curly hair and a round face with soft cheeks. 

 

_ Banshee. _

 

Charles was supposed to be protecting him. The X-men were his children, yet Banshee is here, cut into pieces just like the brotherhood.

 

_ If Charles could only see this. It didn't matter to the humans that Banshee fought for them, that he was a “good” mutant. They murdered and dissected him just the same. _

 

He reaches out to Banshee, wraps him in a sheet as well, a too late apology for what had happened to the young mutant.

 

And Erik finds Emma.

 

Some small part of him had dared to hope that she was still alive, or maybe that Trask wouldn't have had time to dissect her yet.

 

That hope was in vain.

 

She looks like a doll, beautiful but lifeless. And seeing all of her makes him avert his eyes; she had always loved to show skin, had loved the way her body allowed her to manipulate others. But she has never let them use her, she was always controlling them. Trask had taken that from her.

 

As he goes to wrap her in the sheet, he notices something other than the ever present Y. Her hair is stained with blood, dried into a matted knot. As he lifts her head, he twitches away in horror.

 

The back of her head is open, his fingers slipping on the edges of a slit in her skull.

 

Logic tells him of course they cut into her brain, she’s a telepath. But as he sits with her grey matter smeared across his fingers, he can't understand how someone could do this.

 

_ Did he even have the decency to kill her first? Would he even have the decency to give her painkiller if he kept her alive?  _

 

He finishes wrapping her in the sheet and lies her back down. He stays there, bent over her body, until a squad of soldiers force him back into action. 

 

He kills and kills until there are no humans are left, but Trask isn't there. He must have left before Erik arrived; the hunt continues. As he prepares to leave the facility, he considers what to do with the mutant’s bodies, and especially his beotherhood’s bodies.

 

But how can he bury them in a normal grave as if they hadn't been cut open and dissected like animals. How could he lay them to rest in a normal cemetery while they bear the Ys and other scars. How could he ignore what happened?

 

No. He will bury them here, atop heir slaughtered tormentors. And let their spirits laugh to see the vengeance he wreaked in their names.

 

He crumples the facility like a tin can and pushes it deep into the earth, where no one will ever disturb it. And he swears, once he has Trask, he will bring him back here and kill him in this spot.

 

Then he digs countless graves in the disturbed earth over the facility and lies the mutants to rest. He buries his brotherhood in graves next to each other, and Azazel and Janos together in one.

 

He stands, still unable to let go, and stares at the cover graves. What does he do now? He’s so spaced out, deep in his own mind, that he doesn't sense the soldier creeping up behind him.

 

There's a gunshot, and pain blooming in his shoulder. Before he can turn and defend himself, the butt of the gun is slammed into the back of his head and he’s knocked unconscious.

 

He wakes up in a white room with a glass ceiling. There’s a hasty bandage on his shoulder and a tray of nasty looking food sitting on the ground next to him.

 

He can't sense any metal anywhere. He tries not to panic. He gets up, walks around the cell, checks for weaknesses. He’ll have to get himself out of this; mystique has no idea what happened or where he is, and anyone else who would help him is dead.

 

He stands in the tiny, silent, blank room and tries very hard not to panic.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you remember days of future past, he doesn't get out of that cell for years.


	3. it's over, and I wish I were too

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tw: death and gore.
> 
> set immediately after days of future past.

\--------

After he fails to kill the president, after Mystique doesn't kill him, after Charles lets him go, Trask is arrested. Erik stares at the mug shot shining on the small tv screen from the shitty motel bed.

 

He smiles, a slow, painful movement, like a rotting tree in a forest finally cracking and falling down. Some would say that justice had already been served, now that Trask was in jail. But Erik isn’t content with justice, he wants Trask to  _ suffer  _ for what he’d done.

 

He finds the legal records that tell him where Trask is being kept. He tears through the reinforced walls, through the sleepy prison guards who try to stop him, through the bars that Trask stares through, terrified.

 

He takes him and begins the long trip to the facility. Trask is speaking, a frantic rush of words, but Erik pays no attention. What the murderer has to say in his defense doesn’t interest Magneto.

 

He lowers them to the ground where his brotherhood rests. There’s grass and wildflowers growing now, undisturbed, unaware of the atrocities committed here.

 

Erik has brought along a thin piece of piping from the prison. As Trask begs and screams, he sends it slithering through him, piercing his flesh and shattering his bones. Then he uses the piping intertwined with Trask to push him into the dirt, burying him alive in the wreck of the facility he can feel underneath the grass.

 

He stares at the dirt Trask has disappeared into and wonders what to do now. Even with his vengeance completed, he feels empty.

 

He’s so tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you're also reading double edged sword, this is where this story converges with that one. After this, Erik goes and starts his life in poland, a la x men apocalypse.


End file.
